Miyazaki Shorts Get Carnegie Hall Screening

Miyazaki fans have reason to be happy if they're anywhere near Carnegie Hall at the end of March as they'll be screening two shorts, House Hunting and Mon Mon the Water Spider, in Zankel Hall on March 26. The two pieces haven't been screened outside of Japan before and this is quite the coup for them

There will be two screenings on March 26, the first at 6:30 PM and the second at 8:30 PM. Tickets are available now!

Fuki packs what she needs into a big rucksack and sets out on a journey to look for a new house. She leaves the city and heads off into the mountains. Along the way, she encounters some of Japan's many guardian spirits and leaves them each a token offering. And then she finds a place that's just right. Or is it? In this short film, all of the sound effects are voiced by two actors. Sometimes the Japanese onomatopoeic sounds—sounds that are meant to imitate the things that make them—appear as Japanese letters on the screen. But whether you understand Japanese or not, the sounds in the film speak for themselves.

Water spiders are unique creatures that live in ponds and streams in northern Japan. In this film, Mon Mon, a water spider, travels back and forth to the surface of the water, gathering bubbles of air. He drags them back down below, where he uses them as both air supply and nest, all the while keeping a sharp lookout for predators. One day, Mon Mon spies a damsel water strider gliding freely and effortlessly across the water's surface and cannot take his eyes off of her. He thinks of her after she has glided away out of sight and almost forgets to be cautious and wary. Could this graceful, free-moving beauty ever come to love a homely, ungainly water spider chained to his nest of bubbles? When he sees her in danger and rises to the rescue, he gets a chance to see her world as she does.